Showing posts with label fifa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fifa. Show all posts

Friday, December 31, 2010

Brazil and the South African experience



Nice place to surf and play soccer. 

South Africa, a country in development, hosted this year's World Cup. It is now time for Brazil to do the same in four years time. What experiences can Brazil learn from South Africa? Apart from the uncomfortable noise of the vuvuzelas, it was an admirable spectacle to watch, but the country had to make lots of arrangements to accomplish the feat.


Many South Africans claim, however, it was a World Cup owned by FIFA, soccer's international organizing body, instead of a World Cup by South Africa. The point of view of how tickets were sold and the opening concert organized was predominantly European. An aspect that Brazil has to take care of.


Along with these facts, South African minister of tourism inquired the hospitality industry, whether the hotel prices were too high or not. It follows concerns that the flight tickets became costly too. This practice is not new, and it is observed in other sports as well, when there are major events schedulled.

The infrastructure of the country was questioned by New York Times readers, in relation to declarations by Danny Jordaan, head of the South African committee. He stated that the infrastructure in South Africa for the World Cup would be superior than 'any previous tournament host', but the train tickets were difficult to book, and the train station's staff wasn't helpful prior to the beginning of the competition.

Brazil has to observe such problems in order to deliver a beautiful show. FIFA has to work together with the country's committee to understand the internal ambience, and the Brazilians need to improve the organization of the tournament.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

The winner is ...

The future world cup awarded by FIFA

In the bid for the 2022 World Cup, Japan promises high technology in order to be the favorite ones to host the event. People from all 208 FIFA member nations would be able to watch the World Cup in real time, in real stadiums, watching holograms of the real match from Japan. That's quite a promise.

The groundbreaking technology FIFA utilised in the 2010 event was merely 3D, an agreement with one of the official sponsors, Sony. "3D viewers around the world will feel as they are inside the stadiums in South Africa, watching the games in person," according to Howard Stringer, president of Sony Corporation. They forgot that not everyone owns 3D TVs. Looking at this aspect, Japan is already a winner.

What about using technology simply to achieve more 'sustainable' results, such as goal-line technology? It's a method invented by Dr Paul Hawkins that is successfully being used in tennis and cricket. Football supporters, players, journalists, agree the world cup organisers would be better off using the technology than any hologram or 3D effects.

Few examples are England's lost goal against Germany, and Carlos Tevez's goal in the match Mexico battled Argentina, and lost the game.

The future could reserve a holographic world cup, with goal-line technology. That's an improvement.